Sychpant

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Follow Sychpant if you are interested in:

• Evaluating current farm practices to maximise profitability
• Improving your herd health and fertility
• Making breeding decisions to optimise herd performance
• Improving farm infrastructure
• Maximising farm productivity

Overview

Sychpant is a family farm focused on grazing and maximising milk from forage.

Marcus manages the farm alongside his wife Vicki. The team is also made up of tractor driver Will, part-time apprentice Laura who looks after calves, and relief milkers.

Our farm

Located in Newcastle Emlyn, Ceredigion, the farm is home to Marcus Ferraro and his family, spanning across 60 ha of owned ground, which is used as the grazing platform.

They have an additional 122 ha of rented ground on an away block, which is used to make silage.

With a focus on milk from forage, the cows graze as much as they can. The team turn cows out as early as February in some years and house them as late as mid-November.

Marcus aims to do the first cut of silage between 5 and 20 May, depending on weather.

They aim to produce enough silage in their first cut and maize to feed cows from calving through to January or February.

Their second cut is normally baled for their R2s (in-calf heifers) and dry cows. This farm gets a lot of quality grass growth early in the season. However, the grass growth slows down during summer because of the heat.

Our herd

This 12-week autumn block-calving herd of 300 Pro-Cross cows averages 6,500 litres per cow per year at 4.52% butterfat and 3.65% protein.

The cows are milked twice a day on a 16/32 herringbone parlour. The heifers are reared on another farm, breeding 80–85 replacements, with the rest going into beef. This is because Marcus is focused on longevity in the herd.

Marcus has been working towards getting Pro-Cross genetics in their herd – a three-way crossbreeding system that combines VikingRed, Montbeliarde and Holstein breeds.

This farm has 10 Hereford and Friesian bulls, used as sweepers to ensure the cows calve within a shorter block – aiming for 10 weeks.

Our journey

Sychpant has always been a family dairy farm with Marcus’ grandfather purchasing it in November 1973, originally milking British Friesians.

In 2013 Marcus came back to the farm with his wife Vicki. They invested in the cow and calf housing and other infrastructure to expand the farm.

Marcus is currently work on improving fertility in the herd, because it is one of their biggest profit drivers and will help the farm calve in a tighter block.

He is also starting work on improving cow mobility because this is a key area that can have a huge impact with few small changes. Marcus would like to continue working on these things throughout Sychpant’s Strategic Dairy Farm journey.

Marcus said:

“By joining the Strategic Dairy Farm programme, we are hoping to get some expert advice in and hopefully improve our fertility and herd health.

"We've struggled to get to where we are, and we've worked very hard to get to this stage.

"I think being able to let people come and see what we have done and get ideas for their own farms is important.”

News

• Understanding your data to make better strategic decisions (September 2025): With input costs remaining high, farmers Marcus and Vicki Ferraro are using performance figures to make confident, informed decisions, working towards long-term profitability and business expansion

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